


tongues and quiet sighs

by chillpills



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Androids, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-06 23:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3152264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chillpills/pseuds/chillpills
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>He wants so much to do this right, even though he has no idea what right is.</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>:: timestamp to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1002964/chapters/1986690">we are the greatest pretenders</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tongues and quiet sighs

**Author's Note:**

> this is a minature timestamp to _we are the greatest pretenders_ , taking place during chapter 3, a day or two after harry and louis have sex for the first time.
> 
> title from All This and Heaven Too by Florence + the Machine.

“You have your own room,” Louis says to Harry when he comes in after work one day. He's comfortable on the bed and he doesn't look up from his comm.

Also, he's good at teasing. Keeps Harry on his toes.

Harry only smirks at him – a nasty habit he picked up from humans, honestly – and sits on the desk across the room. “What are you doing?”

Louis hums. “Emailing Nick.”

Harry hums back and settles on the desk, taking out his own comm and fiddling with it for a while. It's nice, just the two of them in his room, with the quiet noise of the generators outside. If Louis closes his eyes, he can almost imagine the hum of the generators is the buzz of London traffic, and the lumpy Fleet-issued mattress is the same as the one in his flat at the Academy, and the ping of Harry's comm across the room is just one of their mates letting them know where they're headed out tonight.

“Hey,” Harry says, breaking the silence. Louis drops his arms to his chest and turns his head to look at him.

(Harry is really pretty. Louis heard other people call him that before, but hadn't known enough to say it himself. He thinks he gets it now.)

“Hey yourself,” Louis responds. Harry blushes at that, confusingly, his wires below his skin heating up and going an even prettier pink, and he gets up off the desk and flops down on the bed beside Louis. Louis scratches the fingers of his left hand through Harry's hair. “Tired?”

Harry shakes his head, and when he tilts his head and looks up at Louis, his eyes are bright. He wiggles so he fits closer into Louis' side. “Can I stay with you tonight?” he whispers conspiratorially.

Louis giggles and has to hide his face in his other hand. “I suppose,” he says, sighing up at the ceiling.

Harry grins and shifts again so he's got one leg hooked over Louis', his torso pressing Louis' into the bed. He's warm and solid and he smells like coolant and their brand of shampoo. "Good," he says, as he moves so he can look at Louis more properly.

Louis giggles again, more nervous. His insides feel all mixed up and tight, like someone took a screwdriver to him and twisted everything a few more notches, but it's – good. It's tight in a good way.

“Harry,” he whispers, barely a breath. He wants so much to do this right, even though he has no idea what _right_ is. No one ever taught him.

Harry looks down at him with his lips parted. He's holding himself up on his elbows. Louis didn't see when that happened.

“I didn't know what I was doing,” Louis blurts out, surprising even himself. He really hadn't. In theory, yes, he knows how sex works, but in reality, it hadn't been about that act so much as some kind of weird, semi-instinctual need to get closer and closer and closerandcloser to Harry. Rubbing off against each other had just sort of…happened. Delightful, yes, but tinged with something darker that makes Louis cringe, just a little.

He makes a note to ask Nick about this in the future. _Is it normal to decide to have sex with my friend because I don't like his other friend? Check yes or no.  
_

“I didn't either,” Harry says, interrupting Louis' thoughts. His face softens. “I didn't – is that okay?”

Louis taps his fingers on Harry's hip structure, over the waistband of his jeans. “I liked it,” he says, eventually.

Harry ducks his head to laugh. “Obviously.”

“Hey!” Louis sticks out his tongue and pinches Harry's side. “How do you know I wasn't faking it? Like a sex 'droid?” He's good at teasing. It brings them back to normal.

Sometimes Harry looks at Louis like Louis hung the stars, which Louis quite likes. Other times he looks so confused by Louis that Louis thinks he might've broken something. Right now he's about in the middle of both of those.

“I don't think so,” Harry says, slowly. “I don't think that's what that was.”

The generators' noise seems so distant now, like the Academy and his dorm room and London. Everything is so focused on Harry, right in front of him, and Louis' false heartbeat continues to pulse steadily, slowly, in his chest. He flops his arms out to his sides dramatically. “I suppose you've got me,” he sighs.

Harry giggles again, dropping down to hide his face in the crook of Louis' neck. “Yaaay,” he cheers quietly.

Louis laughs and wraps both his arms around Harry's waist. “You're silly,” he tells Harry, as he turns so they're both on their sides.

Harry gives a little yelp as he turns and nearly falls off the bed, but then he gets his arms wrapped around Louis, too. “Liam doesn't think I'm silly!” he protests, his teeth digging into Louis' skin as he talks.

It would really, really be good if the mere mention of Liam's name didn't make Louis' nerve endings fizzle. Louis knows this. He knows he should try to stop it.

Maybe tomorrow, though.

His arms squeeze tighter around Harry almost automatically. “I'm sure _Liam_ thinks a lot of things,” he says, biting.

Harry stills. “You're silly,” he says quietly.

Louis is silent. The twisting in his gut is getting tighter, and it's not in the good way this time. “Don't,” he says.

Harry shifts like he's trying to look up at Louis, and Louis doesn't let him. He doesn't want to look at Harry. He wants to hold Harry, and never let go of Harry, and keep Harry all to himself, but he doesn't want to face Harry or his nice-to-everyone-he-meets face. He couldn't handle it right now.

“Sorry,” he says, after a beat. He lets out a breath he didn't even notice he was holding in. “Don't know why I did that.”

“It's okay,” Harry says back immediately. He turns his head just enough to kiss Louis' chin, wet and soft.

It isn't, but Louis doesn't want to argue. He makes himself take a deep breath again, listens to the hum of the generators and the beat of his false pulse, and lets himself hold Harry a while longer.

**Author's Note:**

> say hi at [tumblr!](http://tinymercilessking.tumblr.com)


End file.
